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Ireland’s Data Privacy Regulator Will Have Global Sway

In the coming weeks, an Irish government committee is set to pick the country’s new data privacy regulator, a relatively obscure position but one with global sway, Mark Scott reports.

The five-person panel of civil servants and privacy experts will choose a data protection commissioner, who will have a large say in how Internet giants including Facebook and Apple use online information from roughly a billion users.

That is because the regulator has the power to police any company based in Ireland, and over the last two decades many of the world’s largest technology companies have moved their international headquarters there, in large part because of the country’s low corporate tax rates.

“Ireland’s data protection watchdog has found itself responsible for protecting the data of a large part of the world’s population,” said Daragh O’Brien, an Irish data protection expert in Dublin. “It’s the first person over the top on any privacy battle.” Read more »